While Vetra studies Silvano's diaries, Langdon, Olivetti and Vincenzi locate the third church, Santa Maria della Vittoria, but are unable to save Cardinal Guidera (Bob Yerkes) from being burned to death. His body is branded with an ambigrammatic word, "Fire". The assassin (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) appears and kills Olivetti and Vincenzi, while Langdon barely manages to escape with his life. Langdon and two Carabinieri officers (Victor Alfieri and Todd Schneider) race to the Water altar, the Fountain of the Four Rivers, where the assassin murders the officers and drops a bound and weighted Cardinal Baggia (Marco Fiorini) into the fountain. Langdon, assisted by bystanders, saves the cardinal, who tells him the Illuminati's lair is Castel Sant'Angelo. There Langdon and Vetra discover a hidden passageway leading to the Vatican, being used as a hideout for the assassin. Discovering a case with marks for five branding irons, they realize the fifth brand is for the camerlengo but are confronted by the assassin before they can alert McKenna. The assassin spares their lives, then cryptically warns them that his contractors were "men of God". He escapes but is then killed when his car explodes.

Inside the Vatican, Langdon and Vetra find Commander Richter hovering over McKenna with a gun, the Vatican symbol branded into McKenna's chest. Richter and Archbishop Simeon (Cosimo Fusco) are shot by the Guards, and Langdon takes a key that slips from Richter's hand. The stolen antimatter vial is found in St. Peter's Tomb below the church, but the battery life is too low to risk re-connecting it to a battery. McKenna, a former military pilot, seizes the vial and uses an awaiting helicopter to fly above the Vatican. At a high altitude, he parachutes out as the antimatter bomb explodes overhead. McKenna is hailed a hero and savior, and the cardinals move to elect him pope. Langdon and Vetra use Richter's key to watch a security video showing McKenna speaking to Richter before the attack. The video reveals that it is McKenna, not the Illuminati, who masterminded the scheme. McKenna reveals that he murdered the previous pope because he felt the pope had betrayed the church by trying to bridge the gap between science and religion. Once McKenna had killed the pope, he intended to have himself elected to the papacy whilst rallying the most conservative Cardinals to his side. The recording is shown to the Papal conclave, and when it dawns on McKenna that he has been exposed he flees to a remote recess in the building where he is able to commit suicide by setting himself on fire.

The Vatican officially announces that McKenna died due to internal injuries suffered during his parachute landing, and Cardinal Baggia is named Pope Luke, with Cardinal Strauss as the new camerlengo. Strauss thanks Langdon for his assistance and gives Langdon Galileo's "Diagramma Veritatis" for his research, requesting only that Langdon's will contain a request that it be returned to the Vatican, and that any future references he may make about the Catholic Church in his future publications be done gently, to which Langdon replies, "I'll try."

Director Ron Howard chose to treat Angels & Demons as a sequel to the previous film, rather than a prequel, since many had read the novel after The Da Vinci Code. He liked the idea that Langdon had been through one adventure and become a more confident character.[7] Howard was also more comfortable taking liberties in adapting the story because the novel is less popular than The Da Vinci Code.[8] Producer Brian Grazer said they were too "reverential" when adapting The Da Vinci Code, which resulted in it being "a little long and stagey." This time, "Langdon doesn't stop and give a speech. When he speaks, he's in motion."[9] Howard concurred "it's very much about modernity clashing with antiquity and technology vs. faith, so these themes, these ideas are much more active whereas the other one lived so much in the past. The tones are just innately so different between the two stories."[8]

In the novel, the papal conclave attracts relatively little public attention. In the wake of the huge international interest in the 2005 election of Pope Benedict XVI, this was judged to be out of date.[10] There are many differences between the novel and the movie. The character of CERN Director Maximillian Kohler does not appear in the movie. The Italian Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is changed to the Irish Patrick McKenna, portrayed by Ewan Mcgregor. The Boeing X-33 that takes Langdon from the United States to Geneva and then to Rome is absent in the film. In the novel, Commander Olivetti is the commander of Swiss Guard, and his second in command is Captain Rocher, whereas in the film, Richter is the head of the Swiss Guard. In the novel, the Assassin contacts members of the BBC in order to influence how they present the story of his activities, but this does not happen in the movie. The character Leonardo Vetra is named Silvano Bentivoglio in the film, and is not related to Vittoria. Vittoria is a love interest for Langdon in the novel while there is no attraction present in the film. In the novel Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is revealed to be the late pope's biological son, in the film this is absent.[11] In the movie the assassin is killed by a car bomb, whereas in the book he falls from a balcony at the top of the Castel Sant Angelo and breaks his back on a pile of marble cannonballs which eventually kills him. In the book, all four preferiti are killed by the assassin and eventually the high elector is elected as the new pope whereas in the movie, the fourth preferito, Baggia, is saved by Langdon and is elected as the new pope. The high elector becomes the Camerlengo to the new pope. In the end, the new Camerlengo hands over Galileo's book to Langdon instead of a Swiss guard handing the 5th brand, the Illuminati diamond.

Howard hated that the Writers Guild strike forced him to delay shooting the film until summer. However, the quick shoot allowed him to refine the naturalism he had employed on his previous film Frost/Nixon, often using handheld cameras to lend an additional energy to the scenes.

Hanks interrupted filming of one scene in order to help Australian bride Natalia Dearnley get through the crowds to her wedding on time.[17] McGregor said the Pope's funeral was the dullest sequence to film, as they were just walking across staircases. Then, "Someone started singing 'Bohemian Rhapsody' [and] it became the funeral theme tune."[7]

When recreating the interior of St. Peter's Basilica, production designer Allan Cameron and visual effects supervisor Angus Bickerton recognized the 80 feet tall soundstages were only half the size of the real church. They rebuilt the area around and the crypts beneath St. Peter's baldachin, including the bottoms of the columns and Saint Peter's statue, and surrounded it with a 360 degree greenscreen so the rest could be built digitally. Cameron had twenty crew members, posing as members of the public, photograph as much as they could inside the Sistine Chapel, and had artists sketch, photograph and enlarge recreations of the paintings and mosaics from the photographs. Cameron chose to present the Sistine Chapel as it was before it was cleaned up, because he preferred the contrast the smoky, muted colors would present with the cardinals. Although the chapel was built to full size, the Sala Regia was made smaller to fit inside the stage.[18]

The Saint Peter's Square and the Piazza Navona sets were built on the same backlot; after completion of scenes at the former, six weeks were spent converting the set, knocking down the Basilica side and excavating 3½ feet of tarmac to build the fountain. As there had been filming at the real Piazza Navona, the transition between it and the replica had to be seamless. To present the Santa Maria del Popolo undergoing renovation, a police station in Rome opposite the real church was used for the exterior; the scaffolding would hide that it was not the church. Cameron built the interior of Santa Maria del Popolo on the same set as the recreated Santa Maria della Vittoria to save money; the scaffolding also disguised this. The film's version of Santa Maria della Vittoria was larger than the real one, so it would accommodate the cranes used to film the scene. To film the Pantheon's interior, two aediculae and the tomb of Raphael were rebuilt to scale at a height of 30 feet, while the rest was greenscreen. Because of the building's symmetrical layout, the filmmakers were able to shoot the whole scene over two days and redress the real side to pretend it was another.[18] The second unit took photographs of the Large Hadron Collider and pasted these in scenes set at CERN.[19]

Angels & Demons: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on May 22, 2009.[20]

Hans Zimmer returned to compose the score for the sequel. He chose to develop the "Chevaliers de Sangreal" track from the end of The Da Vinci Code as Langdon's main theme in the film. The soundtrack also features violinist Joshua Bell.

The DVD was released on November 24, 2009 in several countries as a theatrical version and extended cut.

The extended cut includes violent scenes which had been cut out to secure a PG-13 rating.[citation needed] In the UK, the already censored US theatrical version had to be censored further in order to obtain a BBFC 12 rating.[citation needed] The Blu-ray includes the original theatrical version and is classified BBFC 15.

CBS News interviewed a priest working in Santa Susanna, who stated the Church did not want their churches to be associated with scenes of murder. A tour guide also stated most priests do not object to tourists who visit out of interest after reading the book, a trend which will continue after people see the film. "I think they are aware that it's... a work of fiction and that it's bringing people into their churches."[21] Grazer deemed it odd that although The Da Vinci Code was a more controversial novel, they had more freedom shooting its film adaptation in London and France.[9] Italian authorities hoped the filmmakers corrected the location errors in the novel, to limit the amount of explaining they will have to do for confused tourists.[12]

William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League, has not called for a boycott, but has requested that Catholics inform others about anti-Catholic sentiments in the story. "My goal... is to give the public a big FYI: Enjoy the movie, but know that it is a fable. It is based on malicious myths, intentionally advanced by Ron Howard." A Sony executive responded that they were disappointed Donohue had not created attention for the film closer to its release date.[22] Howard criticized Donohue for prejudging the film, responding that it could not be called anti-Catholic since Langdon protects the Church, and because of its depiction of priests who support science.[23]

The official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has called the film "harmless entertainment", giving it a positive review and acknowledging that "the theme is always the same: a sect versus the Church, [but] this time, the Church is on the side of the good guys."[24][25] Beforehand, it had stated it would not approve the film, while La Stampa reported the Vatican would boycott it. However, it also quoted Archbishop Velasio De Paolis as saying a boycott would probably just have the "boomerang effect" of drawing more attention to Angels & Demons and making it more popular.[26]

In a FAQ titled Angels & Demons: from the Book to the Movie[27]Massimo Introvigne, Director of CESNUR (Center for the Study of New Religions) points out crucial factual errors in Dan Brown's original novel and the film version. Introvigne also criticizes the Illuminati mythology that is treated as historical fact.

In Samoa, the film was banned by popular film censor Lei'ataua Olo'apu. Olo'apu stated that he was banning the film because it was "critical of the Catholic Church" and so as to "avoid any religious discrimination by other denominations and faiths against the Church." The Samoa Observer remarked that Olo'apu himself is Catholic.[28] The Censorship Board had previously banned the film The Da Vinci Code,[29] for being "contradictory to Christian beliefs."[30]

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported that only 37% of 246 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 5.1/10.[31] The site's general consensus is that "Angels and Demons is a fast-paced thrill ride, and an improvement on the last Dan Brown adaptation, but the storyline too often wavers between implausible and ridiculous, and does not translate effectively to the big screen."[32]Metacritic has a rating score of 48 out of 100 based on 36 reviews.[33] BBC critic Mark Kermode criticized the film's "silliness", saying "Whereas the original movie featured Hanks standing around in darkened rooms explaining the plot to anyone who was still awake, this second salvo cranks up the action by having Tom explain the plot while running - a major breakthrough."[34]

Richard Corliss of Time magazine gave the film a positive review stating that "Angels & Demons has elemental satisfactions in its blend of movie genre that could appeal to wide segments of the audience."[35]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film 3 stars, praising Howard's direction as an "even-handed job of balancing the scales" and claiming "[the film] promises to entertain."[36]The Christian Science Monitor gave the film a positive review claiming the movie is "an OK action film."[37] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film a 2.5/4 stars claiming "the movie can be enjoyed for the hell-raising hooey it is."[38] Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal gave the movie a mixed review claiming the film "manages to keep you partially engaged even at its most esoteric or absurd."[39]

Neil Smith from Total Film gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, saying: "some of the author's crazier embellishments are jettisoned in a film that atones for The Da Vinci Code's cardinal sin — thou shalt not bore."[40]Kim Newman awarded it 3 out of 5 stars, stating: "every supporting character acts like an unhelpful idiot to keep the plot stirring, while yet again a seemingly all-powerful conspiracy seems to consist of two whole evil guys."[41]

Overseas Angels & Demons maintained the #1 position for the second weekend as well even with the release of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian which opened at #2. The film opened with $46 million at the domestic box office. The Da Vinci Code had opened domestically to $77.1 million, but the sequel's opening met Columbia Pictures' $40–50 million prediction, since the film's source material was not as popular as its predecessor's. Within more than a month, the film grossed $478,869,160 worldwide, making it the largest grossing film of 2009 until it was surpassed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.[42][43] Of this $478 million, just over 27% of it is from domestic venues, giving the film high worldwide totals, with over $30 million in the UK, $21 million in Spain, $13 million in Brazil, $13 million in Russia, $34 million in Japan and $47 million in Germany.[44]Angels & Demons was the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2009, with box-office figures of $485,930,810 worldwide.[45]